New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call
A technical consultant is travelling to New York Bakery, and eastern U.S. confectionery company that is under bankruptcy protection. The consultant's task is to assess New York Bakery's readiness for the installation of a new payroll system, which will help it move through the bankruptcy process. By his first week on the job, the consultant realizes that his task is greater than he imagined. In trying to help the organization prepare for the changeover, he faces a series of tough decisions that require his immediate attention. The objective of this case series is to expose students to leadership dilemmas that have to be decided upon in real-time. Collectively, the series of choices the consultant has to make will determine whether or not the project stays on track or is derailed. The series consists of cases A to J, product numbers C1023A to C1023J.
Swot Analysis of "New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call" written by David Loree, Ken Mark includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Consultant York facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management, Leadership, Operations management and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call casestudy better are - – technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Consultant York, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Consultant York 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 New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Consultant York
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 Consultant York
Strengths New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Consultant York in New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call Harvard Business Review case study are -
Innovation driven organization
– Consultant York is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Consultant York 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 New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Consultant York 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.
Analytics focus
– Consultant York is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by David Loree, Ken Mark can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Learning organization
- Consultant York 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 Consultant York is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Consultant York 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 New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Consultant York in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Consultant York
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Consultant York 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Consultant York to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Consultant York to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Consultant York has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Consultant York in the sector have low bargaining power. New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Consultant York to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Consultant York 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Consultant York, firm in the HBR case study New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call, is just above the industry average. Consultant York 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call, in the dynamic environment Consultant York has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Consultant York has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Consultant York has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Consultant York 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Consultant York supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Consultant York vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call, it seems that the employees of Consultant York 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call HBR case study mentions - Consultant York 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call 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 Consultant York has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Consultant York is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call | 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 New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call are -
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Consultant York can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Consultant York 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Consultant York 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Consultant York has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Consultant York to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call case study. Consultant York 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 Consultant York to increase its market reach. Consultant York 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Consultant York is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Consultant York 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Consultant York 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Consultant York can develop new processes and procedures in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Consultant York 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
– Consultant York 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.
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. Consultant York 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. Consultant York 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Consultant York can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Consultant York 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 New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call .
Regulatory challenges
– Consultant York 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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. Consultant York 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Consultant York 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
– Consultant York 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Consultant York with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
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 Consultant York business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Consultant York 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.
Environmental challenges
– Consultant York 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. Consultant York can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Consultant York in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call, Consultant York 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 .
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 Consultant York in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call 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 New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call 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 New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call 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 New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call 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 New York Bakery (G): The Conference Call 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 Consultant York needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
