Elite Personal Training SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Elite Personal Training
This is part of the subset of Ivey cases and technical notes written for Introductory-Level courses.Students must analyze the marketing, operating and financial aspects of a personal fitness training centre to be located in London, Ontario, to determine an appropriate pricing and promotion strategy and the resulting projected financial success of the venture. Students need to develop cash budgets based on their assessment of the information provided. The analysis points to the financial uncertainty for a start-up company without hands-on experience from past years of operation. The case is suitable for class or as a report on business plan evaluation.
Swot Analysis of "Elite Personal Training" written by Elizabeth M.A. Grasby, Nina Gupta includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Courses.students Training facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Elite Personal Training case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Strategic planning and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Elite Personal Training casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Elite Personal Training
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Elite Personal Training case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Courses.students Training, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Courses.students Training 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 Elite Personal Training can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Elite Personal Training case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Courses.students Training
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 Courses.students Training
Strengths Elite Personal Training | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Courses.students Training in Elite Personal Training Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Courses.students Training has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Elite Personal Training 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Courses.students Training in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry
– Elite Personal Training firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Courses.students Training to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Courses.students Training to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Courses.students Training
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Courses.students Training does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Courses.students Training 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 Courses.students Training is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Elite Personal Training Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Elite Personal Training 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Courses.students Training has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Courses.students Training 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Courses.students Training 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 Elite Personal Training - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Courses.students Training 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 Elite Personal Training HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Courses.students Training in the sector have low bargaining power. Elite Personal Training has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Courses.students Training to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Courses.students Training is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Elite Personal Training are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Courses.students Training 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 Elite Personal Training | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Elite Personal Training are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Courses.students Training is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Courses.students Training needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Courses.students Training to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 Courses.students Training supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Elite Personal Training, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Courses.students Training vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Courses.students Training 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 - Elite Personal Training should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Elite Personal Training 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 Courses.students Training 's lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Courses.students Training 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Courses.students Training 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Elizabeth M.A. Grasby, Nina Gupta suggests that, Courses.students Training 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Elite Personal Training 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 Courses.students Training has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Courses.students Training, firm in the HBR case study Elite Personal Training needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Courses.students Training 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Elite Personal Training, is just above the industry average. Courses.students Training 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.
Opportunities Elite Personal Training | 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 Elite Personal Training are -
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 Courses.students Training 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Courses.students Training 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, Courses.students Training 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.
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. Courses.students Training 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. Courses.students Training 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Courses.students Training 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Courses.students Training to increase its market reach. Courses.students Training 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Courses.students Training 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Courses.students Training has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Courses.students Training to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Elite Personal Training case study. Courses.students Training can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Courses.students Training 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, Elite Personal Training, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Courses.students Training 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Courses.students Training 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Courses.students Training can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Elite Personal Training 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Courses.students Training is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Elite Personal Training 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.
Threats Elite Personal Training External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Elite Personal Training are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Courses.students Training 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Elite Personal Training, Courses.students Training 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 .
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Courses.students Training 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.
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 Courses.students Training business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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. Courses.students Training can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Courses.students Training 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 Elite Personal Training .
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Courses.students Training with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Courses.students Training 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Courses.students Training 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.
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 Courses.students Training.
Environmental challenges
– Courses.students Training 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. Courses.students Training 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 Courses.students Training 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Elite Personal Training 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 Elite Personal Training 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 Elite Personal Training 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 Elite Personal Training 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 Elite Personal Training 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 Courses.students Training needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.