Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me?
Andrea Ruma has worked for three years at Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket (Ruma's), a 112- year- old family business in Massachusetts. Andrea is trying to decide whether she will stay in the business or leave to go back to teaching. The problem for Andrea is that her father, Jim Ruma, will not share any information on the company strategy, finances, estate planning, or succession planning, nor provide her with any feedback on whether she is doing a good job. Although Jim is 72 years old, he is an active and opportunistic businessman. In the last twenty years, he has gotten out of the wholesale fruit business and has entered five new business areas, all without any planning. Although the company is profitable and provides good income to four family members, Andrea has doubts as to whether she should commit to the company with the idea of possibly taking over the business as the only viable fourth generation family member.
Authors :: John H Friar, Edmund Clark, Kimberly A Eddleston
Swot Analysis of "Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me?" written by John H Friar, Edmund Clark, Kimberly A Eddleston includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Ruma's Andrea facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? casestudy better are - – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ruma's Andrea, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ruma's Andrea
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 Ruma's Andrea
Strengths Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ruma's Andrea in Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ruma's Andrea has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ruma's Andrea 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.
High brand equity
– Ruma's Andrea has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ruma's Andrea to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? 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.
Organizational Resilience of Ruma's Andrea
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Ruma's Andrea does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ruma's Andrea is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ruma's Andrea is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ruma's Andrea are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Andrea in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ruma's Andrea digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ruma's Andrea 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Ruma's Andrea is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Ruma's Andrea has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? 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 Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me?, in the dynamic environment Ruma's Andrea has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ruma's Andrea has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? 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 Ruma's Andrea 's lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ruma's Andrea 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 star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? 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 Ruma's Andrea has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me?, it seems that the employees of Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? HBR case study mentions - Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Andrea, firm in the HBR case study Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Andrea 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 - Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? | 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 Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ruma's Andrea to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Ruma's Andrea can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ruma's Andrea 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Ruma's Andrea 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ruma's Andrea can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ruma's Andrea operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Andrea to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Ruma's Andrea 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.
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. Ruma's Andrea 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. Ruma's Andrea 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ruma's Andrea 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ruma's Andrea 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Ruma's Andrea can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? 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.
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 Ruma's Andrea in the consumer business. Now Ruma's Andrea can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ruma's Andrea 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, Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me?, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? are -
Increasing wage structure of Ruma's Andrea
– 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 Ruma's Andrea.
Regulatory challenges
– Ruma's Andrea 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.
Environmental challenges
– Ruma's Andrea 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. Ruma's Andrea can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Andrea in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline 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. Ruma's Andrea 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me?, Ruma's Andrea 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 .
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 Ruma's Andrea business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ruma's Andrea 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.
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. Ruma's Andrea needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Ruma's Andrea with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ruma's Andrea 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. Ruma's Andrea can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? 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 Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? 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 Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? 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 Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? 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 Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? 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 Ruma's Andrea needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.