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 - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, 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 -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ruma's Andrea in the sector have low bargaining power. Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ruma's Andrea to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
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.
Innovation driven organization
– Ruma's Andrea is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ruma's Andrea in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
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.
Learning organization
- Ruma's Andrea 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 Ruma's Andrea is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
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.
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.
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 -
Lack of clear differentiation of Ruma's Andrea products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ruma's Andrea needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Ruma's Andrea supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me?, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ruma's Andrea vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, John H Friar, Edmund Clark, Kimberly A Eddleston suggests that, Ruma's Andrea 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.
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.
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.
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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me?, is just above the industry average. Ruma's Andrea 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? 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 Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ruma's Andrea is planning to shift buying processes online.
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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me?, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ruma's Andrea is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Ruma's Andrea needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ruma's Andrea to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 -
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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ruma's Andrea has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Ruma's Andrea to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? case study. Ruma's Andrea can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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.
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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ruma's Andrea 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.
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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ruma's Andrea is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket World: Will Dad Ever Talk to Me? 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.
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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ruma's Andrea can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ruma's Andrea 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.
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.
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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ruma's Andrea 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.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ruma's Andrea 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ruma's Andrea 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Ruma's Andrea.
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.
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.
